Recently, Mia and Catano were in town, visiting from San Francisco, The City as they say, as the first part of their vacation/going-to-a-wedding travels. Catano actually has a first name but like Draplin, I prefer using their last name versus their first. Some people just sound good that way.

When we have visitors in town, we get to play tourist. Showing people your home turf as you might not usually see it yourself. While Chicago has been home for a decade now, I rarely do the tourist thing. I have never been up the Hancock or the Sears Tower. I worked in a building right across from the Hancock for a few years, during the dot-com days, up on the 28th floor in a building that charged too much for office space, where money was being spent like it was going out of style. That was 2000 after all.

It was nice — picking out the best that Chicago has to offer, tailored to their specific interests and seeing all of my bikes being ridden around is an interesting thing to behold. Vegetarian restaurants were visited, coffee and tea shops were left in our wake and we rode north, south, east and west.

What interests me most these days, alongside riding bikes and obsessing over trying to find the right small day bag, is conversation and engaging in it on silly and serious levels. Ultimately, it’s what you talk about — how you say and how you listen.

I spoke and listened. What I heard is that good things may be afoot.

The little strip mall that sits at the corner of Clark and Montrose sees me on regular occasion — sometimes I head to the 7-11 for something or for the once-in-a-blue-moon Subway sandwich but lately it’s been the Dunkin Donuts/Baskin Robbins (known henceforth as the DD-BR) that’s drawn The Girl™ and I there.

Last night, after seeing Zach celebrate his 28th at the Hopleaf, we dropped in at the DD-BR for some post-celebration sweets. Hot Chocolate for her, a scoop of whatever caught my eye for me.

We’ve become familiar with the crew at the DD-BR having dropped in a lot in the past few weeks at about the same time. There’s a tall, lanky fella who’s a couple cousins removed from Napoleon Dynamite (in a good way) crossed with long hair and would soon prove me right in a bit. The other fellow is a mild-mannered older guy who’s been nice to me with free and extra hook-ups on whatever it is I’m getting.

As I’m paying for our sweets, the tall dude asks me what kind of hat I’m wearing. It takes me a few seconds to consider his question — does he mean the helmet Im wearing or the cycling cap underneath it?

I point to the hat, “This one?”

“Yeah. It looks familiar.”

“It’s a cycling cap, made by a guy in Wisconsin.”

“Yeah, it reminds me of a hat.”

“Huh…”, not knowing what he means.

“You know the guitarist in AC/DC?”

Oh. “Angus Young? The schoolboy hat he wears? Oh yeah!”

“Exactly, that’s what the hat reminds me of.”

“Ah, cool. Awesome. Thanks and see you guys soon.”

It all makes sense now. Dude is totally a rocker.

While this may be Moustache May and ‘staches¹ are de rigeur these days, I’ve often pondered how they look in the current revival. My reactions range from Selleck-ian genius to creeped-the-hell-out but here are a few reasons why growing a ‘stache may not be a good idea:

1. You’re not Burt Reynolds and you certainly are NOT Tom Selleck.
2. There is a very, very, very fine line between looking hipster cool and looking like a child molester.
3. The above goes double if you sport glasses, especially those that fall in the emo-hipster vein — thick-rimmed, black, et al.
4. Hitler sported a mini ‘stache.
5. It’s not the 70’s.
6. It’s also not the 80’s.
7. Straight up ‘staches from the above decades are boring — handlebar and Frenchy ‘staches are the way to go. The curlier and pointier, the better. Cole Maness is a good example and if you sport a shaved head like him, even better.
8. The ‘stache’s alter ego as “_______ tickler” is a falsehood perpetrated by the Royal Order of Moustachios to get more men to sport them when no women I know like them.

The plush moustache in the thumbnail above is sold by friend Shawn of Shawnimals. He makes good stuff.

¹ And I applaud all of those in the name of great moustache wearers i.e. Tom Selleck.  ↩

If I had to give this week a name or describe it or make myself sound cool to one of the witty ironic friends I know, I’d coin it a wash-rinse-repeat kind of week.

One of the animals awakes us usually, one of the cats most of the time. The alarm goes off at some point — usually blaring the oddest song you could ever imagine waking up to. AC/DC or Linkin Park or Jimmy Buffett. The station is unknown, perhaps chosen randomly. The TV gets turned on, weather watching. Andy Avalos gives us the dilly. Eventually Decision 2008 comes around in various forms — Clinbama. Obanton. Superdelegatefrajilisticespialadocious.

Later, Where in the World is Matt Lauer? In a galaxy, far, far away.

Quick shower, throw on the kit. 12 miles, around 50 minutes door-to-door, 900+ calories burned.

Email, work, shut down all distracting communication outlets (Twitter, I’m looking at you). A few moments of gravity and depth and plenty of pointless ones to match. Lunch run or lunch made, work. Email is a nuisance. 4:30PM, time to walk the dog.

5PM: Looking at ingredients in the fridge and devising a menu for dinner. Start dinner. Two and a Half Men. Work.

10PM: Two and a Half Men.

Sleep.

Repeat.

“Why can’t they get some natural lighting in here?” I wondered to myself.

The fluorescent lighting above lent only more of a feeling of despair and dinginess to the small room that I waited in. It had some upsides though. A trash can that was wood paneled¹ that I would have loved to have taken home. The old school blood pressure gauge that is so concise and simple yet bold with its burnt amber number wheel that it made me ponder why we have to make things look so stupid and 3D these days with depth². Maybe flat is the new black.

The doctor was all business. He poked me here and there. Made sure my breathing was up to snuff and that all other bits were working well. He wrote some things down then debriefed me. The nurse would take me away to administer injections and draw some blood.

I’ve never been shy of needles or having blood drawn. It has been said that I have a relatively high pain tolerance. I’m not so sure it’s pain tolerance as much as it is a sort of resignation to getting hurt. Years of skating and now cycling have left me with my fair share of injuries and so perhaps a tolerance of some kind has built up. I don’t fight it. I like to move on, thinking about what has to be done next to get past it.

Five jabs altogether. Four had things put in me and one took things out of me. The nurse asked if I were needle-adverse. I assured her no but thought about the last time I had this many injections³ and felt confident with my response.

I was not mistaken. It was over in minutes.

¹ Makers of household items take note: make wood grain paneled trash cans. They’ll sell like gangbusters. ↩

² Gradients, drop shadows, rounded corners, et al. ↩

³ The big bicycle accident, number two in a series of three over a six-month period where I started to wonder if perhaps I was cursed for some odd reason.  ↩

There’s a specific moment that I call a London Moment™ or London Moments™. I’ve tried to write about this before but I don’t feel it was very successful that first time around. I’m going to try again.

It’s made up of two primary things — nostalgia and a specific instance. It gets its namesake from London itself, from the last time I was there in 1998. At the time, I was staying at a relative’s flat — a recent failed relationship had put me in an odd place but I welcomed the reprieve on the other side of the city.

The particular moment deals with being in the shower, preferably hot, with the sun streaming in through the windows casting a particular glow — orange almost, a gold of sorts that doesn’t occur very often — only on some mornings and some evenings. There is a combination of déjà vu and all that has come before this moment. A welcome sadness with a nice tinge of hope thrown in. A mild sort of cartharsis.

I still don’t think I’ve explained it well this time round either but perhaps that’s what makes it magic — that’s what makes it a London Moment™.

The scene at the post office was to be expected — a long queue and no certified mail tags to be found. I had already sent out yearly taxes last week but I was here to drop off the quarterly return.

I don’t wait in the line. There’s an automated machine on the other end of the long, almost-hallway-like shape of this particular post office only enhancing the seeming severity of the queue here. I always head there unless I need to send something international.

There is an inherent fear of the automated machine. It typically sits alone, waiting for someone savvy to come along and happily use it. I belong to this small elite¹ group of people. Those Who Do Not Fear The Technology™.

However, on this day, there are two people ahead of me. Savvy types. Well, except the fella up front who’s being guided by a postal worker. It’s obviously his first time. Eventually he has to get back in line — the machine fails him somehow. The lady in front of me is better but not by much. She falters slightly and the postal worker who’s beautifully decked out in some kind of ladies Burberry jumpsuit with matching Burberry visor and shoes, comes to her aid like some kind of BurberryWoman™ superhero.

While this is going on, I finally notice a girl, who looks like a college student. She’s scribbling furiously away on a plastic chair with a deck of envelopes and other papers next to her. I finally realize that she’s actually doing her taxes right then and there, at the post office. I start to imagine her plan for the day — I’ll wake up, go to the post office and do my taxes then mail it off! The USPS: Your One Stop Shop.

Certainly.

—

¹ I wonder if Obama does as well.  ↩

The weather’s in flux lately — ups and downs, downs and ups. We had a brief reminder of winter this past weekend as a few snow showers passed over the city, their thickness a surreal unpleasant memory. It’s officially Spring™ no?

We found ourselves trapped at home all day Saturday. A mix of extra work, overcast and cold skies and a general lethargy providing a game plan for staying in.

Sunday was a different day — cabin fever galore and the sun was out. It was still very brisk out but as I showered in the morning, that usual nostalgia for times past (moments I call London Moments, to be explained at a future date) crept up on me and I got the idea to venture out to a coffee shop. The Girl™ was amenable to this and so I looked up free wifi close by and found a coffee shop I’d never heard of before but looked like just the place I’d like. Dollop. How could you not get on board with a coffee shop that uses Tumblr for their site?

It’s located in Buena Park, Uptown. Not too far away from here, perhaps a little over a mile and a half. The space is eclectic and a mixed bag in the way I like coffee shops — a mish-mash of furniture and pieces from mid-century modern and thrift. The staff visually identifies as hipster but without the pretense. They seem to be a mellow crowd. I like any coffee shop thats not about getting people in and out — laptops galore and people who are settled in for the long haul.

I had my Field Notes and she had her MacBook. I powered through the outline and talking points for my upcoming presentation (as well as dipping into Embrocation, Bon Appetit and Paste) and she worked through the chicken scratches of plumbers and the verbosity of interior designers in usability testing notes.

The hot chocolate was crap (but made so much better with a lot of cinnamon) as we’ve found many coffee shops to be, but the water was plentiful and free and the spicy hummus and tabouleh wrap was tasty and they were serious when they meant spicy. It was warm, relatively quiet, cozy and comfortable.

I’ll likely be back when the home studio feels a little too cold.

The backyards of the houses around here look like movie sets. Glistening with fresh snow and a soft ambient light made up of miniscule flurries. I keep pace behind the canine leading my way through the inches. It’s odd to see this whiteness again, a return to earlier in the year. As predicted, March brings one last hurrah, one last snowstorm.

I look forward to the warmth that’s on deck for the end of the week, a high of 60°. The day I turn thirty.

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Judah holds court, undoubtedly telling tales of NAHBS the weekend before. More from SF: Day One.

The Girl and I took a break from the classic winter we’ve been having in Chicago by deciding to hop on a flight to San Francisco from Feb. 14th- 18th for some friend-visiting, bike-riding and general-relaxin’.

SF is like a second home to us. We have as many friends there as we do here and it’s a nice feeling to have. It also makes for a pretty hectic time of trying to see as many people as possible yet at the same time, having time for ourselves. We quickly learned that we needed to step back and slow down the last two days we were there and we did. Photos tell a better tale so I’ll leave it at that. More to come.

More from Seattle, on Flickr. Day Two starts here and Day Three, here (navigate right to move forward in the timeline).

Seattle is still a grungy town. The youth of Seattle still sport flannel, lace up boots and “vintage” clothes from the local Goodwill. This isn’t a bad thing — I’m just surprised that Grunge™ is still alive and well. My teenage years were spent wondering about this mystical place that had spawned many a band that I listened to intently. I watched Singles religiously.

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Yum.

This is one of many meals I had a few weeks ago while in Key West. It’s a Lox Omelette from Sarabeth’‘s a breakfast/brunch type place that surprisingly enough started in and has many more outposts in New York.

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